That said, I feel people are too harsh on female characters. They're held to a much higher standard than male characters. A male characters can be the flattest flat character who ever flatted and still get fans. A female character must have not just depth, but the right kind of depth, or she's useless.
I was just about to say this. I was a Merlin fan and got sick to death of people saying "Guinevere is just a love interest!" whilst simultaneously making up tons of meta and fics and GIFs for Percival who we knew absolutely NOTHING about.
And it wasn't just a male/female thing either. Any visiting princess was bound to be adored, even when every single one of them was introduced SOLELY to be a potential love interest for Arthur.
And that's just one fandom out of many. So I always take the "I dislike her because she's a love interest" excuse with a pinch of salt. A lot of the time it feels like an excuse, not a reason.
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I was just about to say this. I was a Merlin fan and got sick to death of people saying "Guinevere is just a love interest!" whilst simultaneously making up tons of meta and fics and GIFs for Percival who we knew absolutely NOTHING about.
And it wasn't just a male/female thing either. Any visiting princess was bound to be adored, even when every single one of them was introduced SOLELY to be a potential love interest for Arthur.
And that's just one fandom out of many. So I always take the "I dislike her because she's a love interest" excuse with a pinch of salt. A lot of the time it feels like an excuse, not a reason.